5: the virtual stage

Web 2.0 tools are very important, because they allow users to interact with each other, and consist of things such as YouTube, blogs, wikis, and social media.  I think these are especially important for students to use because they "allow students their own virtual stage with an audience for their work" as the podcast said.  Wikis help students work collaboratively, and social media allows students to follow people who post things relevant to what they're working on.

The Web 2.0 tool that I might use while teaching that stood out to me is Delicious, which can be found at www.delicious.com.  It's a way for students to bookmark websites for future use or categorize them by topics.  Now, this may seem unnecessary, because you can already bookmark websites on your computer.  However, this site allows you to bookmark them online, so that you can access them anywhere that has internet.  So, for example, if you wanted to bookmark something at school, while on a school computer, you normally wouldn't be able to access those bookmarked pages at home, on a different computer.  With Delicious, you can.

Another really cool feature about Delicious is that it's a social bookmarking site, meaning that you can add other users, and see the pages that they're bookmarking.  This could lead to a lot of new discovery among students, as well as be a helpful resource to students who are working collaboratively.  I really like the idea of using Delicious because it's easier than having to send yourself or write down all the sites that you use.  Since I'm kind of lazy as well as forgetful, this tool seems very useful to me.

I liked the Concept Mapping assignment primarily because I enjoy seeing information broken down and grouped like this.  I think it's much easier to hit the key points in this fashion, as well as a better way to retain it.  I think next time, however, I will try to break the information down even more, as well as add other elements such as graphics and questions.  I liked looking at everyone else's assignments and seeing the different colors and designs.